The Honest and the Dishonest

We’ve all learned a lot about the integrity of
elections in Wisconsin in recent weeks. The most important thing we’ve learned
is who has integrity and who doesn’t, who really cares about honesty and who
doesn’t.

A lot of people seem to think the biggest division
in politics today is between the left and the right. I don’t. I believe it is
between the honest and the dishonest.

When the initial results showed Assistant Attorney
General JoAnne Kloppenburg about 200 votes ahead of incumbent Supreme Court
Justice David Prosser, there was no question on either side there would be a
recount.

Two days later, when the Republican Waukesha County
clerk came up with 14,000 additional votes in the race, putting Prosser about
7,000 votes ahead, Republicans suddenly saw no reason at all for a recount.

Never mind that out of 1.5 million votes cast
statewide in the Supreme Court race, the new, improved winning margin for
Prosser was less than 0.5% of all votes, qualifying for a recount at state
expense under the law.

To those who supported Prosser, all that mattered
was that their candidate was declared the winner of the race. They couldn’t
care less how tortured or questionable the process was that produced the
result.

Prosser’s supporters began publicly attacking
Kloppenburg for requesting the recount to which she and her voters were
entitled by law.

But if Prosser’s Republican supporters in Waukesha
County were honest or cared about the integrity of elections, they should be
among the first calling for a carefully monitored recount of the Supreme Court
vote.

After all, Waukesha County was where the votes of
more than 14,000 citizens on both sides of the Supreme Court race were missing
for two days.

The Government Accountability Board said after
reviewing Waukesha County’s final canvass that there were still “a few
anomalies” that could not be explained by the documentation submitted by
Republican County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus.

Every voter in Waukesha County has a right to wonder
whether the vote he or she cast actually got counted or whether it was reduced
to an anomaly, whatever that means.

Voters there and elsewhere have a right to be
concerned since enough other problems have been raised in previous elections
regarding Nickolaus keeping the county’s vote totals on her personal computer,
to which no one else has access.

In 2006, Nickolaus reported 156,804 total votes cast
in Waukesha County, but somehow came up with an additional 17,243 votes in the
close race for state attorney general in which Republican J.B. Van Hollen beat
Democrat Kathleen Falk by only 8,859 votes.

Maybe if you are a Republican in Waukesha County,
you don’t care whether your votes are counted honestly as long as Republicans
win elections by any means necessary.

Dishonesty of Voter ID Bill

But it would be just as wrong to suggest that
Republicans are inherently dishonest as it would be for Republicans to claim
the same thing about Democrats. Which, of course, Republicans do all the time.

In fact, the nationwide campaign by the Republican
Party to create the totally false impression that widespread Democratic vote
fraud exists in this country is, itself, rooted in dishonesty.

Republicans know exactly who will be turned away
from voting when Gov. Scott Walker and legislative Republicans pass a law in
Wisconsin requiring voters to show driver’s licenses or strictly limited
picture IDs in order to vote.

They will be people of color—only about half of
African Americans statewide have driver’s licenses—the elderly and students.
The proposed law intentionally omits university photo IDs as an accepted form
of identification.

It is fundamentally dishonest to pass laws to
prevent Americans from exercising their constitutionally protected right to
vote just because you think those citizens might vote for the other party.

Despite all the terrible things Republicans say
about unscrupulous Democrats trying to steal elections, Democrats have never
once tried to pass a law to deny the right to vote to people who drive a
Mercedes.

Remember when Republicans were patriotic Americans
who believed in the Constitution? Remember when Republicans were the party of
law and order?

Today, Republicans are the ones who brazenly break
state open meetings laws and threaten to ignore court orders so they can take
rights away from their political opponents.

Dishonesty appears to be a growing political tactic
within the Republican Party. During the health care debate, Republicans were
delighted to find they could turn large numbers of Americans against reducing
their own health care costs by telling outrageous lies about death panels.

Now Republicans believe they can destroy successful
Democratic programs such as Medicare and Social Security if Congressman Paul
Ryan can tell big enough whoppers about an imaginary looming economic
apocalypse.

But adopting dishonesty as a coldblooded political
tactic risks alienating longtime Republican supporters who are honest, perhaps
even in Waukesha County.

It was bad when "conservative vs liberal" finally aligned with "Republican vs Democrat", it will be really bad when McNally's "dishonest vs honest" aligns with same. Some may also say these align with "white vs colored". Either way, when one trait implies another, that is called "prejudice" and "stereotype".

The pressure to "get results" in the present economy is incredible. Not due to the financial crisis we just had, but due to the labor cost pressures of globalization that have been in place for the last 2 decades. According to Wall Street, the recession may be over, but not when your down-sized pappy still hasn't made up his home equity and Main Street still hasn't hired back the town drunk or local loudmouth.

You could be Enron, Bernie Madoff, or the most honest corporation in America, this pressure to remain profitable is intense. It's no wonder that those who play in this arena are often accused of being unethical by suspicious outsiders, and that all businesses practice "damage control" by periodically making employees sign ethics statements, constantly reminding us that "Yes, we is ethical!"

Worse yet, this attitude extends beyond private "for profit" organizations, including those quasi-charitable non-profits, end extending into our public government organizations and bureacracies. It has to. Being held accountable by shareholders to return a positive return on investment is no different than being held accountable by voters to uphold regulations and entitlements with less tax revenues. It's a human nature thing, to keep your job when others would gladly have it.

Simply put, people are only as honest as what they think they can get away with. And those in power (at the moment) think they can get away with a lot!

More on "Damage Control". That's what I call all those "we are going Green" ads you see by major corporations on PBS and Sunday morning national news shows. That's what my brother called Ford's ad campaign years ago "Quality is Job 1". And he said that the ads were also to convince their own workers that they make good cars, particularly as the imports were showing domestics up in quality. Make the workers believe, and they just might take pride in their work, do a better job.

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Voter ID - Next up is large-scale confiscation of Drivers Licenses right before a key election. Reminds me of busting hippies and pot-smokers back in the 70's, of racial traffic stops not so long ago (and plastering it all over CCAP). This time, can it be used to swing an election? All's fair in a war, and that's what we have, a war for control.

Until minority rule is firmly established (bank balances trump census counts), there will be strategic marketing to draw in enough of that 50% voter support needed while setting this new system up (and then those voters won't be needed anymore.)

I agree that dishonesty is really becoming a huge part of election campaigns , and it seems Republicans are more desperate to discredit the democrats more than anything because they have so many alterier motives for their campaigns, and I do believe that the voter ID bill is targeted for african americans to not have access to vote AT ALL,and it should be considered discrimination to require something that not everyone has access to due to any number of circumstances, its sad to know that people in leadership positions do not want success for ALL Americans they just want / care about MONEY when people are really in need not just asking for hand outs , but in the end paper can burn so let them have their "heaven on earth now" it only can last so long.